A Conversation with Alex Showerman
An advocate for trans athletes and outdoor industry professionals
Outdoor industry professional Alex Showerman has had an eventful few years. After breaking her neck, getting laid off during COVID, coming out as a trans woman, and moving from Vermont to Colorado, she’s building her own business. Through Hidden Frontier Collective, she works with brands disrupting the status quo and using their platforms for good.
I met Alex about three years ago at a conference in Boulder and we immediately bonded over storytelling and the outdoors. Over video chat the other week, I caught up with her about finally living her truth and sharing that with her industry, how we can shift the toxic outdoor culture and make the space more welcoming, and emerging through fear and anxiety with hope.
What’s your craft?
My craft is creating change through disruption, growth, and storytelling. I started my career on Capitol Hill and now 10 years later, here I am as a marketing, brand, storyteller, and public relations professional. I’ve also been taking on a larger role as an athlete and advocate providing important representation for LGBTQ+ people as well as working to uplift all who identify as women in traditionally male-dominated sports, like backcountry skiing/riding and mountain biking. My passion is creating change and working with brands that are aligned with me to tell stories and change the industry that they’re in for the better.
Let’s set the scene by talking about your last two years. What have you been through?
If you were to look at my life, I should’ve been happy. I had a cool job, I was in a great community, I had great friends, I owned a house. But I just wasn’t happy. I knew then exactly why I wasn’t happy and the answer was because I needed to come out. Being in the closet was really hard, but I had this big anxiety and fear of moving forward. I was existing in what was comfortable and easy, even though it wasn’t the right thing for me to do. Because of that, I felt really stuck. I was bored, I was in a rut, and I was full of fear of the unknown. With that came anxiety and depression, and my life was spiraling out of control.
Then while mountain biking in July 2019, I hit a tree head first and broke my neck. The irony is, my worst fear in life was breaking my neck. I grew up playing hockey and there were all these horror stories of people breaking their necks. If there was one thing in life I never wanted to happen, it was that, and then I did it. It was grueling. I was hospitalized for five days. I couldn’t get in and out of bed or go to the bathroom by myself. I came very close to being paralyzed. At home, I was stuck in a chair for two months. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t do anything. About a month later, I went to my local trail network to walk. I made it to the first turn up the hill and turned around. My mission was to come back stronger. It was a really transformative time. I started making healthier decisions, like eating better and doing yoga. Nine months later, I was back on a snowboard and finally starting to physically feel like myself again. I felt empowered. If I could recover from my worst fear, I had the strength to finally live my truth as a woman. I felt like, what’s the worst that could happen? Emotional pain? There is actual violence against trans women, but I felt comfortable enough with the people in my life and that really enabled me to move forward.
This March, I went to my doctor and took the leap to start HRT (hormone replacement therapy). It was a really powerful moment. I was finally taking ownership and doing something that I needed for myself. Then COVID hit and I got laid off from my job at a boutique PR firm. Initially it was really hard. I felt like I had the rug pulled out from underneath me. In retrospect, it wound up being the best thing ever because it gave me the space to process everything I was going through. I knew I had to come out and I had time to think through how I wanted to do it. It also gave me the space to reflect professionally. After a month of feeling so depressed, I got back up and started building my business.
Read Alex’s coming out blog and watch her coming out video on Facebook. Spoiler alert: She’s a super talented mountain biker.
(“For years, I’ve been so inspired by all of the incredible women in my life,” Alex says. “I haven’t been able to fully express that until now.” Photo by Grant Wieler.)
What was it like transitioning on the job?
I had a really long coming out process. I got off social media and I came out locally to a bunch of friends in July. Then three or four months later, I came out publicly. As I was approaching potential clients, I wanted to make sure I got those contracts as my authentic self. I started chatting with Weston first because I’d been working with them in the past. They were one of the first brands I came out to. My second client was Athletic Brewing Company. I stopped drinking over the summer and started enjoying their non-alcoholic beers. I actually cold pitched the marketing director. I wanted to help them with their give-back campaign—they started giving 2 percent of revenue back to trail-based nonprofits—and communicate that to the outdoor community. It was the easiest meeting ever. For both brands, I was like, “Hey FYI, I’m trans and I’m going to be coming out.” They both accepted me and celebrated it. That was another scary thing to push through but see the reward on the other side.
You had a positive coming out experience but I know that’s not always the case. How can other people feel welcome, especially in the outdoor industry?
A big barrier was that I felt like I wouldn’t be welcome in the industry as a trans woman. I’m a mountain biker and a snowboarder. Both of those spaces are really dude heavy. Then on top of that, there’s definitely a certain look you have to maintain in the outdoors space. There’s a toxic culture where we laugh at people for not wearing the right thing. It’s exclusionary. I feel comfortable going to a trailhead right now as a trans woman because I have the sweet Tacoma with all the racks. I have the $5,000 bike. I can ride well. I have all of these things that make me look “cool,” right? So I have that armor. If that’s the tone we’re setting, what does it mean if you’re not one of the main people represented? What does it mean if you’re LGBTQ+? What does it mean if you’re a person of color? This elitist mentality means there’s a whole additional layer of anxiety if you’re a traditionally underrepresented person.
When it came to my career, my job as a marketer and PR person is to represent a brand, so I worried that if I wasn’t the standard cool kid, would I be a desirable person to work with in this forward-facing role? Feeling as though I would no longer be a part of the communities that I loved kept me in the closet for a long time. Brands can be better at being welcoming. First off, representation and imagery matters. Some people say that changing your logo to the pride flag is patronizing and dumb. The reality is, I sought out those brands. Also, we have so much imagery of white, cisgender men doing all these incredible things. But then the underrepresented people get relegated to the human interest stories and we don’t actually get to see them shredding at their sport and being the badass athlete that they are. Those stories are important to educate, but let’s see more women and traditionally underrepresented folks in that content. Let’s see them ripping right alongside the white, cis, straight dudes. My dream one day would be to log on to Pinkbike and see a 50/50 split of women and men in content and have traditionally marginalized groups be a regular occurrence as well. Only then will these sports be fully inclusive.
How are you telling your own story?
I’m working on a project called Coming Home. It’s a film about finding belonging in the women’s mountain bike community. I’m so thankful for all the videographers who are spending time on it. I have two goals with it. The first is to provide the representation that didn’t exist for me. Then the other is uplifting women and collaborating with women who I really admire and respect. The more power women have in the industry, the more welcoming it is for underrepresented individuals. When I was still in the closet, two of my friends took me on a lady shred weekend in North Conway, New Hampshire. I was riding better than I ever have in my life. Riding with dudes, you either you rode it or you didn’t. But with my girlfriends, it’s a team effort. It’s like, let’s stop and talk about this and figure it out together. The collaborative, ego-free approach to outdoor that us women have is what the film is about. I want there to be so many stories and so many underrepresented people that it just becomes normal.
(Alex shreds on a mountain bike in New Hampshire. Photo by Adam Lukowski.)
Now that you’re your own boss, do you have any mantras or values you’re living by?
When I first launched my website, I had the tagline “Building brands that give a shit.” My brother works in marketing in Corporate America and was like, “I can’t believe you have a swear word. You’re going to scare people off with that.” Honestly, if brands are scared off by that, I don’t want to work with them. When I’m working with people who share my values, it makes getting up in the morning, sitting in front of my laptop and responding to emails, invoicing, all those things easy. My mantra is only do work that fires me up.
Where are you finding hope?
There’s so much fear and anxiety right now around COVID, the political climate, and just everyday life. The biggest takeaway for me is that I think it’s really easy to let fear and anxiety paralyze you. That’s where misery is. I stayed paralyzed for four years from when I accepted myself as trans to when I took action. When you feel down, name it, but don’t let it consume you and push through it. If you feel like there’s an action you can take to overcome that fear and anxiety, don’t wait. It’s through action that you can start to find hope from within again.
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